The Jewish Heritage of Bavarian Swabia. Culture and everyday life of rural Jewry from 1560-1945

The Jewish history of Bavarian Swabia is unique in Germany and an important part of the region's past. After the Jewish population had been expelled from the cities in the 15th century, Jews settled in small towns, villages, and markets in the countryside. In Bavarian Swabia as well as in Franconia, a network of rural Jewish communities developed which were exceptional in their size and cultural significance. An important role for Swabia was also played by the Margraviate of Burgau, which had fallen to the House of Habsburg in 1301 and belonged to Anterior Austria until 1805. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Jews who had been expelled from other places were able to settle in some villages and markets in the Margraviate of Burgau, which was annexed to the Kingdom of Bavaria from 1806. While Jews had not been tolerated in the Kingdom of Bavaria, as of 1806 there were around 40,000 Jews living there, 6,000 of them in Swabia. The tradition of Jewish life and belief in Bavaria was largely preserved by the so-called 'Landjudentum' (Rural Jewry), from which the Jewish bourgeoisie of the cities and the first generation of the emancipation era came. The heyday of Landjudentum lasted until the second half of the 19th century, until the Jewish population partly migrated to the cities after the Reich Law of 1871.

During the National Socialist era, the once flourishing Jewish rural communities of Swabia were destroyed, and with them the culture of southern German rural Jewry. Among the preserved testimonies of this time are impressive monuments that are visible to the public. The most important of these are former synagogues, especially the restored buildings in Ichenhausen, Binswangen, Buttenwiesen, Hainsfarth and Fellheim, as well as numerous Jewish cemeteries. The synagogues still offer an impression of the former presence of Jewish culture, the coexistence and the mutual understanding and appreciation of Jews and Christians in the countryside. Furthermore, former rabbinate houses, Jewish schools, business, and residential buildings as well as a large number of artefacts in museums, archives, town halls and in private homes remind us of the great importance of the Jews for Bavarian Swabia.

Text: Dr. Ingvild Richardsen (Universität Augsburg)

The part collections of "The Jewish Heritage of Bavarian Swabia. Culture and everyday life of rural Jewry from 1560-1945" available on bavarikon

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